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Life In the Spanish City That Banned Cars (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from a report via The Guardian: People don't shout in Pontevedra -- or they shout less. With all but the most essential traffic banished, there are no revving engines or honking horns, no metallic snarl of motorbikes or the roar of people trying make themselves heard above the din -- none of the usual soundtrack of a Spanish city. What you hear in the street instead are the tweeting of birds in the camellias, the tinkle of coffee spoons and the sound of human voices. Teachers herd crocodiles of small children across town without the constant fear that one of them will stray into traffic.
"Listen," says the mayor, opening the windows of his office. From the street below rises the sound of human voices. "Before I became mayor 14,000 cars passed along this street every day. More cars passed through the city in a day than there are people living here." Miguel Anxo Fernandez Lores has been mayor of the Galician city since 1999. His philosophy is simple: owning a car doesn't give you the right to occupy the public space. "How can it be that the elderly or children aren't able to use the street because of cars?" asks Cesar Mosquera, the city's head of infrastructures. "How can it be that private property -- the car -- occupies the public space?" Lores became mayor after 12 years in opposition, and within a month had pedestrianized all 300,000 sq m of the medieval centre, paving the streets with granite flagstones. "The historical center was dead," Lores says. "There were a lot of drugs, it was full of cars -- it was a marginal zone. It was a city in decline, polluted, and there were a lot of traffic accidents. It was stagnant. Most people who had a chance to leave did so. At first we thought of improving traffic conditions but couldn't come up with a workable plan. Instead we decided to take back the public space for the residents and to do this we decided to get rid of cars."
Some of the benefits mentioned in the report include less traffic accidents and traffic-related deaths, and decreased CO2 emissions (70%). "Also, withholding planning permission for big shopping centers has meant that small businesses -- which elsewhere have been unable to withstand Spain's prolonged economic crisis -- have managed to stay afloat," reports The Guardian.
"Listen," says the mayor, opening the windows of his office. From the street below rises the sound of human voices. "Before I became mayor 14,000 cars passed along this street every day. More cars passed through the city in a day than there are people living here." Miguel Anxo Fernandez Lores has been mayor of the Galician city since 1999. His philosophy is simple: owning a car doesn't give you the right to occupy the public space. "How can it be that the elderly or children aren't able to use the street because of cars?" asks Cesar Mosquera, the city's head of infrastructures. "How can it be that private property -- the car -- occupies the public space?" Lores became mayor after 12 years in opposition, and within a month had pedestrianized all 300,000 sq m of the medieval centre, paving the streets with granite flagstones. "The historical center was dead," Lores says. "There were a lot of drugs, it was full of cars -- it was a marginal zone. It was a city in decline, polluted, and there were a lot of traffic accidents. It was stagnant. Most people who had a chance to leave did so. At first we thought of improving traffic conditions but couldn't come up with a workable plan. Instead we decided to take back the public space for the residents and to do this we decided to get rid of cars."
Some of the benefits mentioned in the report include less traffic accidents and traffic-related deaths, and decreased CO2 emissions (70%). "Also, withholding planning permission for big shopping centers has meant that small businesses -- which elsewhere have been unable to withstand Spain's prolonged economic crisis -- have managed to stay afloat," reports The Guardian.
So no cars just in the historical Centre ... big deal this is common here in Europe....
Interesting, had to look that up:
2 chiefly British : a line of people (such as schoolchildren) usually walking in pairs
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In Groningen, in the netherlands, they did something similar a *long* time ago. You can drive your car into the medieval center, but you can't drive *through*. The city center is divided into 4 quadrants, and you can't get from one quadrant to another without first going to the edge. Also there's hardly any parking.space inside. There are cars in the city, but not many.
Still has the same problem of extra busy edges, but still I think it's a success.
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verkeerscirculatieplan_Groningen (in dutch)
Pedestrianized zones in city centers are common across Europe. It's typical to see 'loading hours' in the early morning when delivery trucks and garbage collection can roam. Emergency vehicles and police tend to get a free pass so the roads need to be passable.
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